What is a Contract Vivarium?
The Contract Vivarium model is gaining significant momentum in the preclinical development ecosystem as one of the life science industry’s most innovative new business models.
A contract vivarium (CV) is a turnkey animal research facility, AAALAC-accredited, that is accessible to multiple clients for in vivo stage preclinical R&D, typically with rodents. By providing a fully equipped, managed, and staffed lab space for research, the CV model offers early-stage biotechs a high-quality, high-potential strategy for early-stage drug development.
Contract vivarium facilities provide certain benefits to biotech and life sciences organizations, regardless of size or field of study.
Science-enabling research space is the foundation of the CV model. CV facilities offer both housing and procedure rooms of varying sizes and configurations to fit the needs of clients at different stages of development.
Along with offering access to fully equipped animal holding and procedure space for in vivo studies, CV's support all clients with comprehensive laboratory animal services (LAS) and regulatory compliance oversight services, including animal husbandry, veterinary oversight, and its own Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) which provides guidance and approval of animal studies protocols.
A contract vivarium typically also offers in vivo technical services support, which includes assistance and training for basic biomethodology, surgical procedures, colony management, and breeding of animal models. Technical services support is especially helpful for early-stage companies who may lack some expertise with animal studies, or for companies who are running lean teams and may just need an extra hand.
The CV research environment and its LAS program is AAALAC-accredited. AAALAC accreditation is awarded through regular inspections of the vivarium facility and review of its operations to certify the highest standards of biosecurity, animal care, and compliance and that all systems and equipment are functioning and stable, providing a safe and contaminant-free environment for animal research.
Many companies who do not have access to a vivarium facility to conduct their early-stage in vivo studies typically outsource their programs to a CRO. However, when looking at high failure rates of clinical stage trials, giving up control of studies is a risky and often expensive strategy. Conversely, the CV enables companies to conduct their own studies in a full-service turnkey research facility.
Choosing a contract vivarium instead of building a vivarium or outsourcing preclinical studies to a contract research organization (CRO), is a sound strategy for de-risking preclinical in vivo stage studies.
Here are the advantages of contract vivarium, which can lead to studies of higher confidence.
When a company engages a CRO, they most often turn over full control of their study or preclinical trials to this contractor, outsourcing their research.
The rapidly emerging CV model offers a do-it-yourself solution for early- to mid-stage biotechs that gives them control of preclinical rodent studies. This, in turn, significantly contributes to the ability to collect robust and reproducible data, including validation of preclinical data sets, thus ensuring a greater likelihood of reproducibility in later-stage trials. This also leads to fewer false positives in preclinical development and, therefore, increased reproducibility in later-stage studies.
Our space plus in-house vivarium management services model enables founding scientists and research teams to keep their in vivo rodent studies in-house without incurring the costs and operational complexities of internalizing a vivarium facility.
Biotechs might have only one chance to bring their drug to clinical, but access to a turnkey vivarium research facility that includes animal care and compliance oversight services offers them control over their science. This enables companies to keep their preclinical studies in-house without having to undertake the operational complexities of running a vivarium, handling animal husbandry and veterinary oversight, and navigating often arduous regulatory compliance requirements.
Instead, companies can focus teams and budgets on research and data validation, which helps them to increase productivity and focus their teams and budgets strictly on science. Operational best practices and stable research environments contribute to more accurate data and reproducible study conditions.
When you’re a CFO in a biotech company and you’re receiving $25 million to go to your next phase, you want to operationalize that money. You don’t want to put it in brick and mortar. You’re better off deploying that money to development.
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Along with access to fully equipped and managed space for research, the CV model supports its clients with comprehensive services and compliance oversight that is highly specialized and required for in vivo studies and that most startups and small biotechs do not employ or have access to within their organization. This level of service and infrastructure enables biotechs with limited resources to keep early-stage preclinical in vivo studies in-house.
In addition to regulatory compliance oversight (including IACUC) and veterinary and animal husbandry services, CV's offer in vivo technical services, which provide training and support for animal study procedures and breeding to benefit and enable client teams who might need an extra pair of hands or expertise to conduct their preclinical animal research.
While small companies and startups will have significant expertise with their specific idea and target, Mispro's husbandry and technical knowledge provide them with additional support and expertise critical to conducting animal studies.
With the CRO option, giving up control of studies may be risky and expensive, with long wait times for starting studies and processing results. As a result, companies typically experience long wait times for studies to begin and results to be processed.
A contract vivarium can help you significantly accelerate your timelines by enabling you to conduct your own early-stage animal studies.
The control that CV offers companies also enables founding scientists and their teams to conduct their own studies and closely monitor data collection and validation, increasing productivity and the likelihood of reproducibility in later-stage trials.
Compared to the CRO option, contract vivarium allows scientists to achieve results and ROI more quickly, by:
Contract Vivarium offers flexible and scalable options for companies regardless of business stage, from startups to mature biopharma companies.
Startups that would like an affordable price point can opt for shared research space, providing flexibility for growth. Large organizations that need extra space can choose the convenience of dedicated private suites.
Here’s how flexible options can help organizations of all sizes during preclinical research:
The contract vivarium model is designed, deployed, and operated to provide clients with an environment that is conducive to successful preclinical in vivo R&D. That is our singular focus.
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Mispro is a Contract Vivarium (CV), a full-service coworking vivarium space. We offer access to fully managed and staffed vivarium research facilities where research organizations conduct their own rodent studies with the support of Mispro's animal husbandry, veterinary, and regulatory and compliance oversight services.
We aim to provide organizations with a better alternative to a contract research organization (CRO) to help life science companies and biotechs streamline their preclinical research for better success.
What you get with Mispro lab space
In Mispro's research environments, scientists can focus on science, while we take care of the rest. Here’s what we offer:
Mispro is North America’s leading contract vivarium organization, with a network of facilities in all major U.S. and Canadian biotech hubs.
Explore how Mispro can help your preclinical studies.
